London’s Olympic Games are just over 500 days away and the organisers’ appeal for volunteers to help out with marshalling and other duties has been oversubscribed, but one essential aspect of the competition is also in short supply – accommodation.

There’s a similar problem for the week around the royal wedding. Try booking a hotel room for this April, or for the summer of 2012, and you’ll either be disappointed or asked to pay an eye- watering tariff.

This excess of demand over supply presents a fabulous opportunity for the owners of flats and houses in the capital. A survey by Primeloction.com has found that thousands of Londoners are planning to let a spare room for the days surrounding the royal wedding, charging well over £100 a night.

Short-term rents during the Olympics are also soaring, with the owners of four-bedroom houses in Greenwich, for example, asking more than £5000 a week. Residents of SW19 know well that this type of letting can be hugely profitable as they cash in each year during Wimbledon fortnight.

But that is all well and good if it’s your own home and you can just go on holiday or visit friends, but what are the opportunities for long-term landlords and their tenants? One landlord in Islington has come up with an innovative plan that will not only line his pocket during the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton but also give his tenants a tidy sum.

He has asked his tenants to move out of their flat for the week of the wedding and is advertising it online to Royal watchers heading to the capital. He is hoping to charge £2000 – four times the usual weekly rent – and will split his profit equally with his usual tenants, so everyone’s a winner.

While tenants may be tempted to sub- let without telling their landlord, this is not only illegal but will also invalidate insurance policies should there be any problems.

It is also essential that both landlord and tenant draw up a binding agreement that sets out the precise details of the arrangement to ensure that the plan goes off without a hitch.